Nurses congratulate Premiers for working together for the future of public health care. Governments need to be much more ambitious to ensure better health, better care and better value for Canadians, says the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) on the opening of the Council of the Federation meeting. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions is calling on the Premiers to champion another health accord and bring the federal government back to the table.

“Governments need to be transparent in their plans for improving health and health care and an accord is a roadmap that Canadians can read,” says Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions president Linda Silas, RN.

In a brief submitted April 30 to the Premiers Health Care Innovation Working Group, the CFNU called on Premiers to work in partnership to:

ensure a culture of safe staffing in health care workplaces;

make improvements in quality and access along the continuum of care;

advance a national pharmacare plan;

develop a plan of action to tackle the social determinants of health; and

adopt a common position on increasing fiscal capacities of governments.

“There are promising cost-effective practices to improve care and health that need to become permanent practices,” says Silas. “It is only by working together that we will see a comparable access to quality services for all Canadians.”

Representatives of the CFNU member organizations from across the country have a speaker forum and health clinic today in Victoria Park, the opening day of the conference in Halifax. The health care panel takes place from 11 -1 pm followed by a health clinic from 3-6 pm. Nurses will be asking the general public and health care stakeholders to show support for public health care by attending the events and by sending a postcard to the Prime Minister to come to the table and participate in discussions on health care with the Premiers.